Amir Dost Mohammed Khan of Afghanistan once observed to the first American in his country that the US electoral process was much like a Loya Jirga that the Afghans followed. A remarkably astute observation by a truly remarkable personality. Well, the American Loya Jirga has decided at the end of an archaic, convoluted, and expensive process. The remarkable Barack Obama will be sworn in as the next President of the United States despite having the least legislative, or executive, experience of possibly any candidate in more than a century. The force of energy behind ‘change’ can be understood by this little fact. Voters have given a toss to experience for the sheer thrill, and rush, for change.

Barack Obama follows in the footsteps of Tiger Woods and Lewis Hamilton by breaking through yet another bastion of colour, lineage, privilege, and restrictions imposed by prejudice. Like the previous two, his is also an extraordinary journey, and achievement. But unlike the other two, his feat is as much a personal accomplishment as it is of voters of the United States. They bought his message of change, and carried it through the ballot box. Laudatory greetings are owed as much to Barack Obama as they are the American voters.

A number of democratic societies experience just such a rush to enforce change as the US voters have done now. Expectations are raised to stratospheric levels, in that momentary lapse of reason. Such hopes are never possible to manage in totality, for the simple reason that the coalition of interests that creates such expectations has its own inbuilt contradictions. In such cases electoral honeymoons are a fleeting moment, and don’t live up to the targets expected. Just such a honeymoon was evident within a section of India, as in much of the world too. The Obama phenomenon consumed more news space and television time amongst the English-speaking slice of Indian society than, for example, recent terrorist incidents in the country. This fact reflects as much on Obama’s attraction, as it does the Indian elite’s distraction from local events. An unhealthy occurrence in the simplest of times. But these times are far from simple, and in fact call for extraordinary alertness, and analysis.

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